CHANGING STYLES

THE OPENING CHAPTER OF MY BOOK ABOUT THE SIXTIES 'YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME', FOLLOWED BY A SHORT TAG

London didn't start swinging as soon as it hit the sixties. In fact, London didn't even know it was swinging till some overseas journalists turned up some time in the middle of the decade and told us what was going on.

Swinging sounded like a fun thing to be doing so we all started to have a go at it. It didn't seem too hard; you just found out where the swinging was meant to be taking place (you could read that in Time magazine or Der Spiegel), and you headed off down there. Then, settled in a corner of the Ad Lib club or The Scotch of St James, you drank until you were blind drunk or, if it still wasn't three o'clock in the morning, you could try downing even more.

Doing this night after night, you naturally tended to commit a variety of indiscretions, and the more adventurous of these acts were referred to as 'swinging'. The combined total of everyone's indiscretions was known as 'Swinging London'.

At that time I had my own film company, which produced documentaries and TV commercials, but I was getting bored with it. Swinging seemed like a good alternative. And apart from the hang-over in the mornings it was very enjoyable.

Sometime around 1965 (with all that alcohol swilling around it was difficult to know what year it actually was), I met Vicki Wickham. She was in charge of booking all the acts on Ready Steady Go, the pop TV programme that served as High Church to the Swinging London cult. We became good friends, and she said I ought to get into the music business. I agreed it sounded like a good idea, but what did I have to do? She said she wasn't sure, but probably not much.

A few days later she phoned me and said, 'Here's your chance. Dusty Springfield wants some lyrics.'

I hadn't actually written lyrics before but it sounded easy enough. I came up with a few on the phone but Vicki said they'd have to be fitted to a melody. Dusty had picked up an Italian song at the San Remo Music Festival and wanted to record it in English, so she'd suggested to Vicki, 'Why don't you and Simon write the lyrics?'

An ordinary day in Swinging London was based around a good dinner; this would start at around nine pm and run on till midnight. Then it was a quick drive to the Ad Lib, The Scotch of St James or The Cromwellian for some heavy drinking. The evening Vicki phoned me there wasn't time to work on the lyrics before dinner, but if we rushed the brandy and got to the Ad Lib half an hour later than usual, we might just fit in some work between the two.

So after we'd finished our crêpes Suzettes, we took half an hour out of the evening and drove back to Vicki's flat, where we sat listening to a scratchy old acetate singing at us in Italian.

I said, 'It's from Italy. The words need to be romantic. It ought to start, “I love you”.’

Romance wasn’t Vicki’s style and she shuddered at the thought. 'How about, “I DON’T love you"?' she suggested.

I thought that was a bit extreme, too far the other way. ‘Why not, “YOU don't love ME”?' I said.

That was more dramatic, more Italian, but a bit accusatory. So we softened it a little: 'You don't HAVE to love me'.

But that didn't fit the melody, so we added two more words: "YOU don't HAVE to SAY you love me'. Great. That was it. We could do the rest in the taxi, and by the time we got to the Ad Lib club the song was all but finished.

In interviews over the years I’ve been asked countless questions about that evening and the lyrics we wrote.

‘Did you really write them so casually.’

‘Is it true you wrote them in the back of a taxi?’

‘Was it about a love affair you’d experienced.’

A more difficult question, and one I’ve never been asked, would have been, ‘What do the words actually mean?’

The answer is - I’m not really sure. To know, we’d have had to ask Dusty Springfield. Because whatever Vicki and I meant by them, it was Dusty who gave them their real meaning. Or at least, the meaning that sold the song.

A great vocal can totally change a song. A brilliant singer can alter a song’s meaning and balance. Dusty Springfield took our casually written lyric and turned it into a heartbroken lament for unreciprocated love – ‘I know you don’t really love me, but just having you around is enough. So please stay.’

Later, Elvis Presley sang the song rather differently. He rushed the tempo and sung it as if he was too macho for all that lovey-dovey stuff - just wanted to get it out of the way. But he still made it clear he was committed to staying around.

Other versions appeared over the years - Cher, Tom Jones, Glen Campbell, Helen Reddy, Smokey Robinson, Taylor Dayne – and mostly they stuck to the meaning established by Dusty.

But more recently, Harry Styles did it – not by singing the whole song, but by taking our chorus line and dropping it into one of his own songs. And this time the meaning was slightly different: ‘You don’t have to say you love me - you don’t have to commit – but at least give me the chance of making love to you.’ Which, to be honest, was probably what the original was about.

Sixties London wasn’t really the swinging city it was known as; it would have been more accurate to call it ‘Shagging London.’ The pill had been invented and everyone was taking advantage. The main purpose of a night out was to end up in bed with someone.

At 2am, sitting drunk or stoned in a disco, with someone you fancied a few tantalising inches away, you’d try to persuade them to come home with you. ‘Come back to my place. Let’s get to know each other. Stay the night together.’

All too often, they’d say, ‘I can’t. We hardly know each other.’ Or even worse, ‘I’ve already got a boyfriend.’

To which you’d reply, ‘Oh come on, just a bit of fun, you don’t have to say you love me or anything like that’.

So you see...

Not a romantic song after all. Just a tacky pulling line.

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